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Divorce Divorce
is something most folks prefer not to go through, but which probably half of all
married folks in the Anatomy
of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We
Stray Why
We Love : The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic
Love I
want to share a quote from page 159 of "Anatomy of Love" that will set the stage
for what I hope will be a thought provoking spin on the divorce process: When asked
why her marriages failed, Margaret Mead
replied, "I
have been married three times, and not one of them was a failure".
Dr.
Mead's spin on her own serially monogamous marriages is very upbeat and I
think healthy from many different angles. Every relationship -- past and
present -- that teaches, inspires, motivates, or otherwise contributes to
a person's growth, maturation, industry or such contributes to
one's storehouse of strengths, coping skills and such ("Fitness'). By this
measure few divorces signal failure at all. They tell us much
about evolutionary biology and the behavior it informs, and also speak
volumes concerning transitions and transformations that can
enhance individual fitness. Mead's
contention mirrors my own. And I would add: Divorce has an element of
rejecting the other in it, yes, but this (I feel) is only a
small part of the story for many, if not most folks. By and
large, I'd wager that most are actually rejecting the
relationship itself and not their mate per se. Yes, the
nature and dynamics of a relationship flow forth
from the people involved, but this is not to say that the dysfunction or failure or what-have-you in the
"stepchild" the couple creates (the relationship) is an engrained attribute
or feature of either party. To
use a crude analogy, let's think of a couple as two basically complementary
software programs running on a PC. They are individually and collectively
well designed and functional, but occasionally give rise to system and
operations conflicts. The programs continue to operate, but as a consequence
spins off some additional errors with the passage of time. The 2 programs
remain (say) 99% intact -- skillful works of design, mind you -- but
undergo gradual declines in performance and efficiency. Eventually the
minor conflicts blend to create a major, fatal one -- and the system
crashes. The programmer then teases apart the 2 formerly intertwined
programs, and debugs them -- but discovers that the changes to the
programs are sufficient to make them ill fitted to be run in tandem
ever again. They remain beautiful design works, though no longer capable of
running as an interactive, complementary "whole".
Looked
at in this vein, divorce may not be as painful for at least some of those going
through it and may well take on a different hue for some of those who have been
through it. Submitted
for your thoughtful consideration by Dr. Anthony G. Payne ©
2005 by Dr. Anthony G. Payne.
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